Angle Drive Speedo Cable Different Size Ends

[glemon]

I went to do what I thought was a five minute job Sunday, fir the speedo cable annd angle drive to my still somewhat not all put together TR250, the end of the angle drive would not fit in the drive on the O/D, I have the later J type as fitted to later TR6s, I trried grinding down the cable sticking out of the angle drive and got nothing much accoumplished (still wouldn't fit) before it started unraveling.

I then tried to fit the speedo cable end out of curiosity, it didn't fit either, so I tried the tachometer cable end, danged if it didn't fit!

Do the square ends of the cable/angle drives come in different sizes? I have another angle drive from a spit on the way to see if that works, part numbers in Moss for the angle drive seem to be the same for all TRs, MGs and Healeys except the early 100s.

Anyhoo, do a just have a wonky female fitting on my O/D or does anybody know if these come in different sizes? I did not think to try to fit it when it was off the car and would have been easier to mess with, but never encountered such a problem before

Very frustrating, these "5 minute jobs" that seem to go on and on are really slowing progress on the car.

 

[TR3driver]

Sounds to me like your OD came from a Volvo ...

 

[glemon]

I know Volvo used them too, I suppose that is possible, it mated up fine to my Triumph gearbox.

Greg

 

[alfa33047]

I have reworked about 30 Triumph speedometer angle drives so that I can use them on my Toyota 5 speed conversions. If your angle drive/square drive does not go up inside your Triumph transmission speedo drive, your problem is with the speedo drive inside the transmission. It has been my experience that pretty much all Triumph (TR-3, 4, 6 and Spitfire) angle drive are identical. MGBs will work also. Your speedometer drive inside the Triumph trans can be easily removed and inspected. Take it out and look at it. Its a dirty job and can be oily but should be easy to remove. Good Luck, Bill C. Mesa, Az.

 

[glemon]

No oil in the tranny yet, I wasn't sure if it was one of those items that is easier to pull out than to put back in with the tranny together, I did remove the bolt and retention plate the other day, but it did not want to pull out by hand and I really don't want to break anything

Greg

 

[TR3driver]

I know Volvo used them too, I suppose that is possible, it mated up fine to my Triumph gearbox.

They were built to be adaptable to any gearbox, so it only takes the Triumph adapter and mainshaft to mount up a unit from a Volvo (plus the rear mount issues that you would have had anyway).

If it did come from a Volvo, then the drive ratio to the speedo is almost certainly wrong (meaning your speedometer and odometer will be way off even if you do get it hooked up). If you are lucky, just changing the driven gear to the correct Triumph part will produce the correct drive ratio (which is different even than the ratio used by later TR6). But there is a chance that the driving gear inside the OD is also wrong and will need to be changed. The bad news is that it takes a fairly complete teardown of the OD to get to that gear.

The other alternative is to get a speedometer or transmission shop to make up a "ratio adapter" for you. This is an extra box that goes in the speedometer cable and changes the ratio to make the speedo work. Local shop quoted me $100 for one, but that was a long time ago, they are probably more like $150 today. One source might be: https://www.bobsgauges.com/servlet/the-template/ratioadapters/Page

 

[glemon]

Interesting, I don't know where the O/D came from, well it came from New Zealand, but don't know what car it came off of, the guy that sold it to me asked me what it was going on (I am sure that it was advertised for triumph, but that does not necessarily mean from a Triumph) anyway, I told him what it was for and he supplied me with the right mainshaft to install in the standard tranny for the O/D, so he seemed to know a little bit about what he was doing.

Just checked the numbers on the unit S/N 28115873 009302 on the reveted on plate 115240 on the side of the casting right above the S/N Plate. Does this mean anything to you experts

Thanks for confirming the angle drives are the same, I will try to pull the drive female coupling out of the tranny and see if I can bung it out a little.

 

[HerronScott]

According to an article on the J-type overdrive on the Buckeye Triumphs website, the 2 models for the TR6 are the following with 25% ratios. According to your model number, yours is a 28% ratio.

"Two models of the J type overdrive were fitted to the TR6; model # 25/115838 fitted from commission number CF1 to CF35000 and Model # 25/1158976 from commission number CF35001."


Buckeye Triumphs J-type overdrive article

I did a quick Internet search but couldn't come up with a specific car that uses that model, but I found a few references to it including a link to a thread here back in 2007 where someone bought one with the same model number from someone in New Zealand for use in a TR6 as well (Julian Bunn).

I would guess this was originally from a Volvo.

Scott

 

[HerronScott]

Greg,

Did you try contacting the vendor that you bought it from?

Scott

 

[glemon]

I don't know if I stil have the contact information, it was a while back, via e-bay.

 

[HerronScott]

I think the person selling overdrive transmissions on eBay from New Zealand is Ian with possibly this e-mail address - roslian@xtra.co.nz.

Scott

 

[glemon]

Thanks, Greg

 

[HerronScott]

I did a quick Internet search but couldn't come up with a specific car that uses that model, but I found a few references to it including a link to a thread here back in 2007 where someone bought one with the same model number from someone in New Zealand for use in a TR6 as well (Julian Bunn).

Greg,

I went back and read the whole thread here from December 2007/January 2008 on overdrive transmissions and there were posts from you also purchasing your overdrive transmission from the guy in New Zealand (no contact information though) along with Julian Bunn and 2wrench!

Scott